


I Hate the Architect

by clararegenerated (roryfreisthler), roryfreisthler



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Minor Clara Oswin Oswald/Danny Pink, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parallel Universes, Past Relationship(s), Rift (Torchwood), Secrets, Uninformed Consent, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 20:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30027327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roryfreisthler/pseuds/clararegenerated, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roryfreisthler/pseuds/roryfreisthler
Summary: During an explosive fight between Clara and Twelve while they are at the Cardiff rift, Clara accidentally hooks herself into the TARDIS's telepathic circuits and wishes that her Doctor had never regenerated. She lands in another universe that is rapidly crashing into multiple universes, including her original, and is found by an Eleven who has recently lost his Clara and mistakes her for his Impossible Girl, who he was in a relationship with.How will Clara navigate this new world that she knows everything, and yet, nothing, about? And how far will her original Doctor go to ruin her perfectly controlled fantasy, or save his alternate self from devestation?
Relationships: Clara Oswin Oswald & The Doctor's TARDIS, Eleventh Doctor & The Doctor's TARDIS, Eleventh Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic I apparently took down after a while? It was still up on my Fanfiction.net profile, though. Anyway, I edited the prologue and first chapter (only minorly) and finished the second chapter that was in progress. No promises for how soon it'll be updated next, though.

"Just...don't even argue." That had been what he'd said, and she hadn't. All of time and space, a madman in a box and his impossible girl. How could she have said no? Danny was dead, and a job teaching English at Coal Hill School hardly matched up to travelling through time and space with the Doctor. It seemed like fate just wanted them to be together.

  
Clara skimmed her hand over the surface of the TARDIS control, and the TARDIS made a friendly beep. Even the TARDIS wanted Clara back.

  
"She likes you now, eh?" The Doctor smiled down at her, and Clara looked up at him. "Suppose so."

  
"You're doing that again. The sad smile. Stop it. It doesn't make sense." The Doctor sighed.

  
"Okay." She forced a smile. "I'm going to go up to my room. See you tomorrow."

  
"Goodnight, Clara," the Doctor called after her as she climbed the stairs. He'd said she should stop the sad smiling, but he was doing it too. They both knew that whatever they had was fragile. It was time to stop pretending.

  
But not tonight.


	2. Collateral Damage

The next morning, Clara stumbles down from her room with blurry morning vision, still half delirious from the whole experience with the dream crabs and flying on Santa’s sleigh. The Doctor immediately turns around when he sees her. Clara remembers how he’d leaned into her touch the previous night and how he’d declared that okay, he’d hold her hand but no one else’s, and how on the second day of his regeneration he’d told her that she should never change and he was happy playing her games. He’s besotted, that’s the problem. Because it’s never going to last, either he’ll regenerate or she’ll have to leave or something. 

  
“So. Where are we off too, Doctor?” She leans against the wall of the TARDIS, ignoring the thoughts, because that’s what they’ve always been about. Running.

  
“Cardiff, Wales. Time to refuel.” He tells her. 

  
“You refuel a time machine at Cardiff, Wales?” she demands.

  
“Yes!” He looks at her like she’s crazy. “Of course I do. There’s a rift on time and space, and it’s particularly active in January 2007.”

  
“Don’t you ever run into yourself?” Clara asks. 

  
“No.” He smiles triumphantly. “Last time, two faces ago, was at a different time in January 2007.”

  
Clara can’t help be a little amused. The Doctor looks like a little boy, like he did when he was Eleven, dodging himself to get to the rift at the best time. “Okay, let’s go.”

  
“Yes, boss,” he says, and hits the controls.

  
***  
“I’m refueling the TARDIS. You go do whatever young women do in Cardiff,” Twelve makes a dismissive hand-waving gesture. 

  
Clara rolls her eyes, and looks around for any place that could possibly be interesting. She doesn’t know how long the refueling will take. 

  
“Clara!”

  
Clara would know that voice anywhere, and it’s not Twelve. “Danny?” she calls out in shock, tears beading in her eyes.

  
He appears, behind her. “Clara. I need your help. You can save me!”

  
“No. This is a vision. This isn’t real.” She’s trying to hold back tears, and it doesn’t work. 

  
“I’m lost, Clara. Take the Doctor to Torchwood and get him to open the rift. He can do it. Please. I love you.” 

  
She’s calling out for him, but he just keeps on repeating that she can find him, she can rescue him, she can get the Doctor to open the rift. And then he fades.  
She stumbles back and knocks into a young man with dark hair, who’s just run out a bar near her. His expression is as lost as hers, and unless he’s someone who hears voices or something, she’s pretty sure he’s seen the same thing as her.

  
“Did you see him too?” Clara points to the air that Danny was in. “A black man with metal all around his body? Talking about opening the rift and Torchwood?”

  
“Did you see a woman? Kind of looked like Audrey Hepburn? Sort of like you but with curlier hair? Talking about Owen?” He’s breathing heavily. 

  
“No.” Clara shakes her head in confusion. “What’s going on?”

  
“I don’t know, but if you’re involved I need to bring you to Torchwood.” He grabs her arm and she tries to twist away, but he is strong. 

  
“We can make this easy, sweetheart, or we can make this hard.” He snarls at her. 

  
She stops struggling and lets him bring her along. If they can find Danny, she’s coming. 

  
***  
The Doctor finishes refueling the TARDIS and looks around, only to see Clara disappearing into what appears to be an invisible wall nearby the rift. 

  
“Of course. Torchwood. Always Torchwood.” There was all sorts of energy floating around in the air, but he attributed it to the rift. He was to preoccupied with refueling to realize that something was wrong. And now Clara’s been kidnapped. He almost runs his hands through his hair like he used to do when he was Eleven. But he can enter Torchwood, right? A quick blast of the sonic reveals the entrance, and he steps on the platform and sonics it. 

  
***

  
“Oh, shit. What happened?” Clara hears Owen ask as he steps into the Torchwood hub. He looks toward another brunette with a police badge who’s holding her. “Are you alright?”

  
“Harper. We do not need you picking up another brunette time traveler.” A man with an American accent points at Clara.

  
“Me?” Clara asks. “How…how did you..” While Owen speaks over her. “Harkness, you’ve fired me, and I can do whatever I damn please. She needs our help!”

  
“Do you know the Doctor?” Clara asks while Owen demands, “How many other people have got to suffer? I’m opening the rift.”

  
The American appears very confused as to who to talk to first. A tall man following Owen clears that up. “Make sure you stop him,” The American tells the second man.  
“No.” The second man says emphatically, and a black-haired woman with a kind face adds, “We’re helping him.”

  
The other brunette in the American’s arms pushes him away, saying something about Bilis being right. Whoever Bilis is. 

  
“Gwen!” the American calls out as she walks away.

  
Okay, so I know one more name…Clara thinks to herself. The man who first brought her here is Owen (or Harper?) the American is Harkness, and the brunette is Gwen.   
“You said something about the Doctor? Are you his companion?” Harkness fixes his gaze on Clara.

  
“Um, sort of. We used the word carer once?” Clara’s trying very hard to not break down, lose control. 

  
“Carer?” Harkness makes a face.

  
“Um, I care so that he doesn’t have to…” Clara explains. 

  
“That doesn’t sound like my Doctor,” Harkness says. Clara thinks she would much rather be spending time with this American man’s version of her Doctor than with his latest regeneration. 

  
“What….what did he use to be like?” Clara asks. “The other time he visited you in January of this year?”

  
Harkness looks at her with a raised eyebrow, and Clara realizes this visit probably hasn’t happened yet. “Never mind. Before.”

  
“Enter Emergency Protocol One,” one of the voices says, and Gwen cuts in. “Out of my way. I’ll do this.”

  
As they babble, trying to enact Emergency Protocol One, a sharp voice calls out, “Clara! You can’t let them.”

  
“Doctor?” Clara spins around. 

  
“Clara! You can’t let them initiate the protocol! People will die!” The Doctor tells her.

  
“Danny is dead. And I’m going to bring him back,” Clara declares.

  
“What, so P.E. can shoot another boy and cry about it? Or so you can keep on lying to him? And me? Give it up, control freak, you can’t control this one.” 

  
Tears spark in Clara’s eyes because never, not once, has the Doctor been this deliberately mean to her. Sure, there have been the little comments about her hips or whatever, but she was able to shut those down and he was never this mean. 

  
Harkness is staring at his team. “Oh my God, what have you done?” He turns to the Doctor, after hearing all he said to Clara. “And who have you become?”

  
“Clara. TARDIS. Now. Before we get any more involved in events.” Twelve says sharply.

  
“But Danny…” Clara trails off, because even though the rift has been opened it doesn’t look like he’s appeared anywhere. Jack and Gwen are running out of the control room-like place, and Owen is smashing things. Clara supposes his Audrey-Hepburn-lookalike didn’t come back, either. 

  
“Now.” Twelve’s angrier than Clara’s ever seen him, and for the second time that day someone’s grabbing her and pulling her.

  
The TARDIS looks different, like it did on the days that the Doctor activated the TARDIS telepathic interface. She remembers something vaguely about the Doctor saying he had to take the safeguards down to fuel it up.

  
“But Danny might be back…” Clara protests, although the TARDIS is already flying away and she knows it can’t work.

  
“Not my fault he brought some little boy that he killed back instead of him!” The Doctor declares.

  
“I never would’ve distracted him and made him walk into traffic if I hadn’t had to explain you to him! He never liked you, and he was right!”

  
“Not my problem. Not my responsibility. Collateral damage.” The Doctor shrugs and looks at the screen of the TARDIS. “So, going home and cooling off, then coming back next Wednesday, or are we actually going somewhere interesting?”

  
I can’t believe you, Clara thinks. You think I’m so predictable. Well, I’ll show you unpredictable. “Harkness was right. You’re not his Doctor anymore. And you’re not my Doctor anymore. I shouldn’t have to be your carer.” She spits, putting her hands on the TARDIS console.

  
“Clara! Don’t!” The Doctor calls, actually looking panicked. She hasn’t seen him this scared of her since she threw the TARDIS keys into the volcano, and she’s relishing it. She’s back in control like it should be.

  
“What, scared of my words, Doctor?” Clara laughs, hardly noticing the orange goop sucking her fingers in. “You know what, I wish you never regenerated. I loved him. I realized I loved him when he regenerated. But I don’t love you. How can I? You’re a monster, an alien!”

  
“Clara! You don’t know what you’re doing!” The TARDIS is rocking back and forth, and she laughs. “Telling you the truth is what I’m doing, Doctor. After all this time.”

  
“No. Look at your hands.” Clara looks down, and sees her hands stuck in the TARDIS telepathic interface. The TARDIS lands, and releases her. 

  
“Where…are we?” Clara asks. Nothing looks different. 

  
“Well, seeing as you told the TARDIS you wished I’d never regenerated, you’re lucky I’m not dead.” Twelve scoffs. “Maybe your precious Danny is back. Hope it was worth it.”

  
“So… what do we do about this?” Clara asks.

  
“I suppose we have to see how much things have changed,” the Doctor answers, reluctant.

  
Clara rushes out of the TARDIS, and turns a corner. They appear to have landed in an alleyway somewhere. “Geronimo,” Twelve says sarcastically, running ahead of her, and he bumps into a man.

  
“Hey,” the man says, stepping back and angrily adjusting his bow tie, “that’s my line.”


	3. Something Lost

Twelve examines the new version of Eleven. A boyish smile, happy that he isn’t the only idiot in the universe who uses the catchphrase geronimo. A bow tie and fez. But beneath it, an anger lurking. Something lost.

  
Looking away, like it causes him pain to look at the younger version of himself, he turns around the corner and grabs Clara, who is watching the scene with great interest, and leans in to whisper into her ear. “We’re going. TARDIS. Now.” 

  
“No.” She stares back at him with those brown eyes that never listen to anyone. “I’m done letting you be in charge, and telling everyone to listen to you. If you want to go back, I won’t stop you, but I’m exploring.”

  
She knows she’s being reckless, exploring this parallel universe without the Doctor — this universe’s Doctor might not even know her, he might hate her. But this universe has the right Doctor, and that’s enough for her at the moment. And Twelve won’t go running after her — perhaps he’s even given up at her at this point.

  
“Fine. I’ll wait in the TARDIS for when you come to your senses and realise you shouldn’t chase what you can never have. Try not to break time.” If Clara was more like the woman she’d been when she’d jumped into Eleven’s time stream, she would notice that he was like the Oncoming Storm, not particularly caring about the impacts of her actions and perhaps hoping something would be destroyed. But she isn’t thinking about that, she’s thinking about her possible future with this version of Eleven.   
She walks forward, just behind the new Eleven. “Doctor?” she asks cautiously, tapping the bow-tie clad man on the shoulder.

  
“Thank you, someone who finally calls me the Doctor without questioning…” The Doctor turns around, and in the split second before he recognizes Clara, she sees that same face her Victorian echo had encountered after he’d lost Amy and Rory, but so much worse.

  
And she knows without a doubt that her parallel self is no more.

  
“I thought you’d died,” Eleven leans forward and captures her in a bone-crushing (well, not quite literally) hug. Clara tries not to think about how her version of Eleven had once told her that everyone is naked under their clothes. “How did you survive?” he asks, with Clara still firmly in his arms.

  
“I’m -” 

  
“You know what, it doesn’t matter, I won’t make you relive it. The Chronovores are horrific enough for Time Lords to interact with. You’re my Impossible Girl, of course you survived,” As Clara is making a mental note to find some way to research these beings that her Doctor had never mentioned without this new Doctor noticing, she is shocked by him pressing his lips to hers.

  
He’s kissing her. That’s weird. There was always a strange sort of tension between her and her Doctor, but they never did anything official more than him pretending to be her boyfriend. Of course she kisses back, she knows she must have wanted this when she put her hands in the TARDIS’s telepathic interface, but apparently it was subconscious. How much else of this universe has been brought to her by her subconscious desires?

  
“I need to get you back home,” he says after he removes his body from being quite as close to hers, and wraps his arm around her back. 

  
“Please tell me you mean the TARDIS,” Clara says, laughing a little bit to make it sound like she’s sure it is, because honestly, she has no idea where her home is in this universe.

  
The Doctor looks at her strangely. “Of course I mean the TARDIS. Did you think I was talking about your father’s house? That’s not where I would take you after a major temporal incident, you’re hardly close enough with him to discuss all this.”

  
At least that hasn’t changed. It sounds like her counterpart had stopped paying for a flat and properly moved into the TARDIS. Another thing Clara had subconsciously wished she’d done…

  
He leads her to the TARDIS, which looks more or less like the one her Doctor had used to pilot prior to his regeneration. When he gently nudges her in the direction of her bedroom and she starts walking down the stairs to it, she face-plants against an invisible boundary.

  
“Oh, not this again,” the Doctor groans, and walks closer to the screens of the TARDIS.

  
“She’s not the right Clara? Bollocks, you never liked her. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with her,” He sighs in frustration. “Clara, you’re not tricking me, are you? The TARDIS has some strange ideas today.”

  
“I mean, my name is Clara Oswald, I’m right here. I’m certainly Clara…” Clara’s voice is choked up as she realises that this might be what stops this from working out. She’s not harming anyone, though, she rationalises. Her original Doctor was hurting her more than she is hurting him by doing this, and the version of her in this universe is dead. Surely The Doctor shouldn’t have to suffer any more than he already has over the millennia. 

  
“I know you’re confused. You never stopped being confused about her. Please, just let her go to her bedroom. She narrowly escaped an encounter with the Chronovores!” The Doctor pleads with his ship.

  
The mention of the creature that must have killed Clara’s double in this universe is enough to convince the ship to let the barrier down, and Clara walks through it and towards her bedroom, as The Doctor sweet talks his TARDIS.

  
She really needs to figure out what sort of creature these Chronovores are, apparently. 


End file.
